What is a Landing Page?

A landing page usually keeps content minimal to hold visitors on a single conversion: capturing a lead, winning a signup, or making a sale. One strong call to action points at that goal. Lead-generation landing pages include an opt-in form that asks for details like a name and email address, while click-through landing pages skip the form and send visitors on to a checkout or signup page.

Landing pages are often part of a larger promotional campaign, such as a brand or product launch. A marketing email, social post, or paid ad makes a promise; the visitor clicks and lands on a page built to keep it.

Landing page vs. homepage

The two pages do opposite jobs, and the difference is the reason landing pages exist:

• A homepage serves every visitor. It carries full navigation and many possible goals, so attention scatters across dozens of links.
• A landing page serves one campaign audience. It has one call to action, minimal or no navigation, and one measure of success: its conversion rate.

The decision rule: send ad and email traffic to a dedicated landing page, not to your homepage. Every extra link is a place for a would-be conversion to leak away.

Types of landing pages

Unbounce counts 13 types of landing pages across three categories: standalone pages, microsites, and pages inside your main website. Four types cover most campaigns:

• Lead-generation pages (also called lead-capture or squeeze pages) trade something of value, such as a guide or a discount, for contact details. Use one when you want a list of leads rather than an immediate sale.
• Click-through pages explain an offer's benefits and end in a single button that leads to the purchase or signup step. Use one to warm visitors up before asking for payment details.
• Sales and product pages make the full case for one product and take the order on the spot. Use one for a considered purchase that needs persuading.
• Splash and coming-soon pages announce a launch and often collect email signups before the full site exists. Use one to build an audience ahead of day one.

Landing pages built for one campaign are temporary and get retired when it ends, so they sit outside a site's evergreen content. Many others run year-round: marketers keep evergreen landing pages live for ongoing offers like demos, webinars, and newsletter signups. Some are built on microsites, small standalone sites that support a single campaign.

How to create a landing page

Pick one conversion goal per page; every other decision follows from it. Remove or minimize the navigation so clicks can't wander from the call to action. Write a headline that repeats the promise of the ad or email sending the traffic, and keep the form short by asking only for what the campaign needs.

Once the page is live, test it. Change one element at a time and let real traffic pick the winner. Ready to build? See our guides on how to build lead-generating WordPress landing pages and landing page A/B testing.